Mrs Rusty Bucket

I have two friends who dote on their puppy mill specials. The dogs attack and harass big dogs on lead, they've got back and arthritis problems and incredibly bad teeth. It's to the point where one is on steroid drugs to function, and the other can barely walk and they're not yet ten years old. But the friends' daughter likes these dogs so much she went and got two more from the same "breeder" and I expect she will be up for thousands more than she really needed to fork out at the vet as well.

Ooh hard to imagine Frosty being so gentle with that home made toy. She has been known to chew up soft drink bottles. But maybe if I supervised... I've been putting some of her kibble ration into a bath mat and rolling it up like a swiss roll and letting her work it out. That's supervised too - to make sure she doesn't eat her way through the mat to get to the food. So fair - she hasn't figured out how to unroll the roll but she does get all the food out, and then she gives the mat a good shaking and then brings it to me and shoves it in my lap. "Can I have some more (please)".

Pardon my ignorance but what is a "scotch collie"?

I don't get one until they get their sales target and then I have to wait until 14 days after that. so will be $30 + $12 shipping... I measured around my chest with a tape measure over my clothes - cos I like things loose and the chinese are notorious for skimping on cloth (they make things smaller than promised because it's cheaper for them). So I got 39 which is in the medium size. If you go to the Gildan website you might find more info about lengths but apparently the sizings are unisex (read bloke) so if you're tall, then anything that fits over your chest should be ok. I will probably get a skirt free with mine. PS the one I got before was from café press and a bit tight around the arms. But it was a female sizing. This is the accumulated info I got. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://teespring.com/recallers5 Apparently the size chart is a bit temperamental - and only displays with chrome browser. Here is the chart: S 34-36" M 38-40" L 42-44" XL 46-48" 2XL 50-52" 3XL 54-56" http://teespring.com/faq#for-buyers We have three standard shipping rates: One for domestic shipments (inside the United States), one for Canada, and one for other international shipments. Domestic (United States) shipping $3.85 + $1.00 for each additional t-shirt. Your shirt will arrive within 7-14 days from the end of the campaign. Domestic (Canada) $9.50 + $4.00 for each additional t-shirt. Your shirt will arrive within 14-21 days from the end of the campaign. International shipping is USA$12.50 + $4.00 for each additional t-shirt. Your shirt will arrive within 14-21 days from the end of the campaign. ---------------------------------------- Canvas Triblend Tshirt http://blog.teespring.com/post/89658408384/fall-in-love-with-tri-blend-tees Tri-Blend is a blend of cotton, polyester and rayon fabric Gildan is a polyester cotton blend. As best I can tell from their website. http://www.gildanonline.com.au/product_view.php?sn=n805dhgp3ra4711n6pkv3jf4s2&cata=400&sub_cata=401&code=18500

I've signed up for a tshirt. It is my fave colour. I got one of the previous years as well. Always felt naughty wearing that to dog training club. PS I think I'm supposed to do the alumni IYC challenge with Frosty's dinner tonight... Ie spend a bit of time winding her up about dinner and then drop a big chunk of it on the floor next to her... Yikes. Normally I make her do three fetches, a spin, twist, drop, stand, (turkey) then permission to eat.

Now I really need to get off computer and play with the dog.

Following... There's something wrong with the link that displays all the people you are following but I changed the word "followers" to "following" in the address line and got my list up. Anything you follow will pop up on the dashboard page. Hopefully. It's important to follow the group "announcements" - because that's where they post info about up coming live coaching calls. I also think it is important to follow mandy pilgrim - because she posts the announcements I also follow these for obvious reasons. Susan and Susan Garrett and Lynda Orton-Hill I'm thinking it would be helpful if we want to find all the dolers on SG if we put a tag of dol or #dol into the bottom of our posts. I tag all mine MRB and then the date backwards and time and sometimes with the recommended hashtag eg #crategames eg MRB 140704 12:11pm #dol and then from the dashboard you can search comments for #dol and find the rest of us. If we all do that.

grey dobe what stops a dog from picking that up and tossing it like the kong? Or chewing it up?

I met someone at the park who was admiring all the tricks I could get my dog to do. And I suggested she try teaching her dog to do some. She said "he doesn't like food" - he was completely rotund round roly poly... Erm. And he liked my food which was kibble.

I think my dog's fave is the 1-2-3 game - ie trying to fake her into breaking a start line stay and then releasing for a chase and play. Often that works better for getting her back to me than a recall. After I learned some of these games I used to get stroppy at dog club when they were suggesting we all creep around carefully and quietly around practice stays... NOOOO - you need to practice distractions...

My brother got a kitten - that completely had his old staffy under its thumb/claw. So my brother told me great tales of how this cat would beat up my dog and make her respect cats, and would stand its ground and not run away... Well I think my brother over estimated his cat's tolerance to excited cattle dog barking... and the cat couldn't do anything about it because my evil hound stayed out of reach - at least a 2m safety gap... so cat weighed up her chances of "escape" given a 2m head start and bolted up the nearest tree as far as it could get. We've had to keep them separated ever since. Evil hound even left a message outside the room the cat was hiding in. Oops. I think if my brother hadn't been so insistent on letting them sort it out (and me confident that cat would not get close enough to do damage), that they'd actually be able to be civil to each other but the opportunity was lost. My dog thinks that cat is the best chase toy ever. And the cat - despite all my brother's tough talk - is definitely scared of my dog.

TSD - you're supposed to reward (treat) the non working critters (in crates etc) too...

Collar grab game - when we're playing the game - she will happily shove her neck into my hand for ear rubs and treats. When she's just stolen the bread I put out to catch slugs with in the yard - it's a little bit more difficult. We did get the bread back that time, but I failed this morning (I let her out without me) - hope it's too cold here for rat-lungworm disease. So there's a training opportunity for me - little bits of bread in the back yard its yer choice. And we're still failing the upgraded version of IYC - where dog gets treat only if dog can pretend she's forgotten there is a treat to be had... Not looking forward to "call once game" will have to recruit neighbours kids for that one I think.

What about a whippet - it's hard to be scared of them. I think the main danger with little dogs - is the danger of accidentally being squashed in a game of zoomies when one dog zigs and the other zags... the damage to small dog is much greater in one of these prangs where a bigger dog might just have bruises and be sore for a while. A little dog could end up with broken ribs. I've seen out at the park all sorts of mixes of big and little dogs. A miniature? dachshund with German short haired pointer and a kelpie, a SWF mix breed with a wolf hound, SWF with Rottweiler... most little dogs are quite bossy anyway. It's only the accidental collision you really need to worry about.

I remember packs of up to 20 dogs wandering suburban streets in early 1970s Adelaide. Our dog used to routinely take itself for walks - and pick fights with any dog that had a curly tail over it's back. And the stories about it were not told with embarrassment or any sense of wrong. A dog we had in the late 1970s used to escape and take itself from Adelaide City to Aldinga to visit its old pack mate. And we'd get phone calls from Marion to come get it. Eventually it rehomed itself with a family that lived about half way between our place and Marion - and were home all day. I never remember it being seen as dreadfully wrong apart from the playing in traffic problem. But unwanted puppies were routinely drowned and dogs that hurt people - didn't get to wander long. It was much more common for people to deal with this themselves than wait for council or police to deal with it. PS I guess dogs had similar status as far as staying home - that cats do now.

You can get custom built "luggage cages" like tradies get done to their vans - as long as there are no air bags in that part of the car. I've got custom built luggage cage in the back of my Landcruiser for camping trips. So much better to have shelves and drawer systems than have everything bouncing around in the back. And I can unbolt it all and remove it if I want to put something that doesn't fit. When I got it built - I took all the boxes I wanted to use as "drawers" and a "dive tub" and a car fridge with me - so that the guy building the thing had them to check measurements. I have a shelf high up that fits a fold up crate nicely. Unfortunately for me - that particular crate has died. And the new caprice one doesn't fit on the other shelf either - but it does fit in the gap between the back doors and the cage. The cage could do with some modifications to make it more usuable when I'm not camping but it is so much better than nothing. So I guess you could ask at your local 4WD camping club - (eg landcruiser club) where they get their vehicles done. Or google auto fitters, vehicle fit outs, motor trimmers - this is one of the best in Adelaide. But they won't fit a cage where there are airbags and they're wary of fixing seatbelts or replacing them where the "explosive" systems are fitted (eg Toyota after 1999...) http://www.willshire.com.au/vans-utes-4wd/custom-fit-outs.html

Nope, the SBT could be regulars - I don't know. They could have been having an off day. They might have been free because their owner tripped crossing the road and let go of them. The tv report was strange because it suggested that it was an off lead place that the event happened. It wasn't. Attack or not, injury or not - the SBT owner was in the wrong and has broken the multiple parts of the animal management act. Some of the people "interviewed" said there need to be law - there are already several - that were broken. That's the trouble with Laws - they don't prevent bad things from happening - they just make it easier to assign blame and punishment. As for "otherwise social dogs" - my definition of a grumpy dog is one that acts aggressively. Not all dogs are grumpy all the time or with everybody or every dog. But if they act aggressively - they're grumpy - that's how I define it. I don't see it as completely the same as "dog aggressive" or "human aggressve". I didn't see this attack - and I don't know if the SBT were serious or not - except that the report and one person interviewed did say it was hard work getting them off the victim(s). And given how well these things get followed up - we might never know.

The dog has been to the vet - and the diagnosis was the dog needs to "lose some weight" which the equally fat owner didn't take seriously. I think vets could do a lot more here but they don't want to upset their customers. It's horrifying to me. And I have failed in my reward based training - and put a sad face against the pic on facebook - I feel bad about that but I don't think ignoring the problem is going to help the dog. The owner's wife was posting happy picks of taking her dog for a walk - but they're the first pix I've seen of the dog going for a walk since I visited last NOVEMBER!!! It clearly doesn't get walked often - it clearly is way over fed. My reaction is about the same if they'd proudly posted pix of it after it had been in a dog fight with bloody wounds all over it. So I feel like I've punished my friend (the wife) for taking the dog for a walk. There's a lot of passive aggressive stuff going on between her and her husband too which makes me cringe. But she's a very needy person and can't live alone. And I'm the opposite.

Could you stay friends with someone who has done this to their dog.

Probably not. Nothing like starting at 4 weeks with the puppy you bred yourself - working on building tolerance to frustration and persistence in learning new things. But you can do these things with an older dog - and every year SG gets better at working out how to get the rest of us to make progress in the right direction with our dogs that have not had her dogs' upbringing. And it will be fabulous info to have for your next dog and any other dog you meet along the way.

The report is strange. For starters - the victims were up on the esplanade footpath combo bike path - and dogs must be on lead there. They're only allowed off lead on the beach (and that was underwater - tide in, during the report). State law requires dogs to be on lead on the footpaths and everywhere public - unless it's a "park" or otherwise sign posted - the sign about off lead / effective control - that the report showed - does not apply to the footpath which is right next to a busy ROAD. The SBT should have been on lead where the victims were. And even if they were off lead - dogs are not allowed to harass or attack anyone or thing in public places - there might be an exception if they feel their owner was being attacked. But that usually applies to when they are on their home property. And that particular beach from the Broadway near Glenelg down to the Brighton and Seacliff yacht club including Phillips St is my local beach and I often go there when I don't have time to Tennyson on the weekends. I didn't go this morning because the weather was so shite. High winds, rain and hail. The schnauzers look vaguely familiar. I haven't seen two grumpy staffies on the beach ever. The ones on the beach are usually super sweet grovelly dogs. Nobody can take a grumpy dog onto that beach because of all the in-your-face happy-tail-slappy slobber dogs.

GSD_glenwood If it is confirmed that your GSD has hip displasia - you can send details of that and his ancestry to the DNA database. This can help them work out what is and isn't genetic and how likely to occur etc. http://sydney.edu.au/vetscience/lida/dogs/ At the moment most of their publically available data is based on data from the USA - and Australia has some overlap but not completely. A bit too late - but you didn't ask first - this is a link to an article about the consequences of early desex (before maturity eg 18 months to 2 years for a big dog) on the dog's growth and skeleton and ability to do sports like Agility and IPO (Schutzhund). http://www.caninesports.com/uploads/1/5/3/1/15319800/spay_neuter_considerations_2013.pdf there's another article up on that site about the early desex effects on Vizlas - haven't read it yet. http://www.caninesports.com/useful-info.html So far my dog has been fine with early desex (she was 8 weeks old - I got her as a 10 week old puppy from AWL - no choice). But she does seem like a puppy in a lot of her behaviours even tho she's now 5.5 years old

I wonder how hairy we'd all look if we didn't have mange? Maybe some cultures / countries have less mange (thinking of Greece...)

There's some sort of eyelash follicle critter... We are all supposed to have. I just think of myself as a gigantic specialised bacterial colony... a bit like an ant colony - all these cells cooperating to live. And then I carefully not-think about it. Like not-thinking about sharks when you're at the beach.

The squirrel dude copes really well with being tossed and doesn't drop all the kibble out at once. The kong - like the others said - you have to freeze the food in it or it falls out far too quickly.